


Lacrimosa

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Coping, F/F, Funerals, One Shot, Season/Series 02, bereavement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 05:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13804581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: A surprising yet welcome visitor attends Rita Bennett's funeral.





	Lacrimosa

**Author's Note:**

> Lacrimosa is Latin for "weeping" though it also alludes to Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows. In Mass, Lacrimosa is also known as 'Requiem' which belongs to the Dies Irae sequence. 
> 
> This fic takes place sometime after 02x08, Sins of the Mother.
> 
> Some of Vera's thoughts may seem... cruel, but that's the result of an emotionally abusive relationship.

Our Lady of (Lacking) Sorrows witnesses an abominable crime: death.

A small group congregate around a patch of dirt. A closed casket waits to descend.

So it goes.

Miserably, Vera Bennett listens to the priest ramble on. She looks to the murky sky. Despite today’s warm weather, she’s chosen to bundle up. To hide herself within a black peacoat. She huddles within its woolen embrace. It hides her paperdoll angles.

Cremation would have been better. At least that insinuates righteous burning.

_I hope you suffer._

Eternal rest? A sham.

 _Stop it,_ Vera chastises herself.

She doesn't know who she's become.

She doesn’t pay attention to the priest's incantations. They're lost on her. Years of Sunday School are thrown to waste. For her sins, she'll rot in Hell.

A fine mist rolls across the shallow hills that riddle this cemetery. A mourning angle loses half its face and that's not just due to erosion. She half-expects the corpse in the sleek, mahogany casket to be exhumed. A quietude infects this place.

Vera sniffles. She smells the damp earth which revolts her far more than her recent criminality. Correction: her act of mercy.

It rains. As it always does. As the funeral cliché goes. A light drizzle transforms into a downpour. Without an umbrella to protect her, the Deputy Governor shivers. She resembles a fawn on a fresh spring day, stumbling over itself, unfamiliar with its body.

Vera holds a flower, unlike all the bouquets she will receive and throw away (save for one – one she will press into a book and covet like a treasure all thanks to her sanctified version of Joan). Maybe that resembles obsession's clutches most truly.

The casket lowers into the ground slowly but surely. She wants to get it over with – to continue her life patrolling bars, living vicariously through caged, resentful women she had once hoped to help.

Within her nimble grasp, the oleander wilts. The stem withers as she accidentally crushes it. She tosses the flower onto Mum’s grave.

Courtesy of the rain, the flower’s remnants decay. It’s a swift demise.

“You’re handling poison, Vera.”

“What-?”

She blinks. Snaps out of her trance as Joan Ferguson gestures to the drooping petals.

With a rigid spine and firm shoulders, the Governor assumes a militaristic posture. An umbrella shields her from the stubborn drizzle. Vera stands up straight, mirroring what she's been taught and sold.

Her “mourning” attire speaks to a cool practicality. In the realm of cosmetics, Joan sticks to a minimal look. Bronzer adorns her cheeks. A swatch of nude-coloured gloss graces her thin lips.

She wears black. This is no different from her standard attire.

Yet, there’s a swatch of color. A silken scarf is fastened around her neck in a tight knot like a noose. From the corner of her sullen stare, Vera catches a glimpse of white.

“Oleander. An interesting choice. Let it go.”

So, she does.

How can a woman in a black burn like the sun?

Vera chooses to turn her cheek the other way.

“You were faced with a difficult decision.”

It disturbs Vera that she can’t cry. Death can’t conjure up the bitter tears or demolish theembittered years. Does that make her a monster? _Christ_ , she hopes not.

Glassy eyes ache. Her heart-shaped face points downward. Stormy eyes focus on the damp mound of soil that piles high. In the confines of her heels, her toes grow cold.

Joan scrutinizes the minuscule monument. At the offense, her lip twitches. The past conjured up her father’s name. She imagines ' Ivan Ferguson ' etched across the grave. What she did or did not do remains her secret to keep.

The oblique tombstone reads, ' Rita Marie Bennett. ' The rest doesn’t matter.

“You came,” Vera says.

Hollowness replaces surprise.

Though her wrist remains rigid, the umbrella twirls. Raindrops scatter. A velvety timbre intends to soothe.

“I don’t condone what you did, but I do understand why you did it.”

Joan squeezes her shoulder. Oh, how it anchors her. Away from the dwindling crowd, she accepts that leather embrace. The gloved, right hand provides Vera with structure, with a detached comfort she desperately needs.

Nurturing tame things only makes them wild.

Joan is the agony that knew her all along. She’d kill to be her. And maybe, maybe, her mercy of an act can be regarded as such. So, this is how a good person goes too far.

The dowdy priest has paid his respects. Along with a few acquaintances that have offered false apologies, Vera is left along with her superior. Soaked to the bone, her hair plasters to her face. She slips her cold, trembling hands into her pockets.

It’s a mad world.

She feels Joan's laser hot stare upon her. Even now, it's like being placed on a mortuary slab. Vera swallows. Prepares her body for the autopsy.

“Allow me to cook you a homemade meal.”

This is the Governor's attempt to soothe, to console, to offer something out of nothing.

Here and now, they cut to the chase. A wise man once said, ‘Kill your darlings.’ The filler is left out. There's no conversation to contribute.

Vera turns to look at her idol, as if she's sprouted three-heads: a modern Cerberus in the works. She blinks. Swallows. Nods. It's reminiscent of their first meeting. Then, she stumbled over too many words. Now, she has none.

How to cope with bereavement? You don’t. You move on.

She allows for Joan to mold her – to shepherd her towards some higher purpose.

To the car, they make their soldier's retreat.

Finally, Joan adjusts her posture. Her shadow consumes the finality of Rita's memory. She positions the umbrella over the two of them. A heated hand settles on the small of Vera's back, ushering a greying lamb ahead for the slaughter.

But Joan is a wolf without teeth and only a faint smile that reassures Vera just as it blinds her.

 


End file.
